Each week in OSV Newsweekly, Carl Olson provides a thoughtful, relevant reflection on the Mass readings for Sunday in his "Opening the Word" column. The following is just an excerpt, but you can read the entire column here.

Jesus is the perfect son, the “new Adam,” who reveals the way to the Father — and that way is in Jesus and through Jesus. “You have faith in God,” he tells the disciples, “have faith also in me.” This faith requires faith in Christ, a humble trust in his guidance. “As the way,” said St. Hilary of Poitiers, “he will guide us to the truth. As the truth, he will establish us in the life.” And that life is not merely a good life here on earth, although that is to be sought and treasured, but the divine life. The many dwelling places — I memorized it as “mansions” as a boy — are part of the kingdom of God, which continues to grow.

“He calls together all men,” the catechism explains, “scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church” (CCC, No. 1). The Son established a new family, the Church, the “household of God” and “the pillar and support of truth” (1 Tm 3:15). Or, as St. Peter puts it in today’s Epistle, we are being “built into a spiritual house;” we are a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own ...” Jesus is the new and everlasting temple, and those who enter this temple will find everlasting rest and peace.

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